Jewish Refugees from Germany and Austria in Britain, 1933-1970

Between 1933 and the outbreak of war in 1939, over 60,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia fled to Britain, and some 50,000 settled there. No previous historical study of this group of immigrants exists, though they form one of the most high-profile groups of refugees to have come to Britain in the twentieth century, both as survivors of the Nazi terror and as high-achieving contributors to British society. Author Anthony Grenville focuses on the first quarter-century of their settlement in Britain. He covers new ground by drawing on a rich source of contemporary material - the previously untapped monthly journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees, AJR Information, which started in January 1946. The journal is the only contemporary source that provides material for a full-scale history of these refugees when they established themselves permanently in Britain, how they adapted to British society and developed their distinctive 'Continental' identity and culture that characterized them in their adopted homeland.